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Students' communicative behaviour in a foreign language classroom

Flyman Mattsson, Anna

1999

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Citation for published version (APA):Flyman Mattsson, A. (1999). Students' communicative behaviour in a foreign language classroom. (WorkingPapers, Lund University, Dept. of Linguistics; Vol. 47).

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Lund University, Dept. of Linguistics 39Working Papers 47 (1999), 39–57

Students’ communicative behaviourin a foreign language classroom

Anna Flyman-Mattsson

IntroductionThe purpose of this paper is to give a description of the communicativity in aforeign language classroom and also of students’ communicative behaviour.

Since the beginning of the 80s communication has been widely discussed asone of the main features in instructed language learning. The focus on form,that traditionally has been dominant in the language classroom, was combinedor even replaced by focus on meaning and situations similar to authenticlearning settings. Immersion classrooms were created to fulfil this need fornatural communication and students learned the new language by using it as ameans to communicate other subjects. After some time, however, severalstudies in the immersion classrooms showed that although the students’communicative competence was highly developed, their grammatical skills didnot measure up to those of a native speaker (Harley & Swain 1984). Thetraditional methods, however, did not provide students with thecommunicative skills that are necessary for the use of their second languageoutside the classroom. It is therefore necessary to find a balance betweenauthentic communication and instruction in the classroom for the students toreach the highest possible level of L2 proficiency. Typical behaviours intraditional instruction are error correction, simplified input and a limited rangeof language discourse types while in more communicative settings, meaning isemphasized over form with a limited amount of error correction as a result,input is simplified by the use of contextual cues and a larger variety ofdiscourse types is used (Lightbown & Spada 1993).

The teaching situation in Swedish upper secondary schools (senior highschool, Swedish gymnasium), as far as foreign languages are concerned, is stillquite traditional in many places and there is generally a lack of authenticcommunication, even though the curriculum emphasizes the importance ofcommunicative competence and intercultural understanding (Skolverket

40 ANNA FLYMAN-MATTSSON

1996). The purpose of this study is, therefore, to describe communication inthese classrooms and establish the students’ communicative behaviour.

In the classroom, several different kinds of activities occur where communi-cation varies considerably. Typical activities will, therefore, be categorised withthe intention to describe the students’ communication as distinctly as possible.It is also relevant to compare the communicative level in these different groupsof activities as it will be of importance in future studies of the role ofcommunication in the acquisition of a foreign language.

The method that has been used for this purpose is an observation schemereferred to as COLT. The scheme has been adjusted for the present study asits original intention did not include the categorisation and comparison ofdifferent classroom activities.

Background to COLTCOLT stands for Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching and wasintroduced for the first time in 1984 by Nina Spada, Maria Fröhlich andPatrick Allen. This observation scheme was developed within the context of aproject investigating the nature of L2 language proficiency and itsdevelopment in classrooms, referred to as the Development of BilingualProficiency (DBP). One of the research components in this project was toinvestigate the effects of instructional variables on learning outcomes whichrequired an observation scheme that could systematically describe instructionalpractices and procedures in different L2 classrooms. Furthermore, one of themain questions was whether instruction which was more or lesscommunicatively oriented contributed differently to L2 development. Anobservation scheme was, therefore, needed to describe the exact features ofinstruction.

Description of COLTThe COLT scheme is divided into two parts, the first of which describesclassroom events at the level of episode and activity and the second partanalyses the communicative features of verbal exchange between teachers andstudents and/or students and students.

COMMUNICATIVE BEHAVIOUR IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM 41

COLT Part A

TIME PARTIC. ORGANIZATION CONTENTACTIVITIESOTHER

Class Group Indiv. MAN. LANGUAGE TOPICS

T s/c

S s/c

Ch

ora

l

Sam

e

Diffe

ren

t

Sam

e

Diffe

ren

t

Pro

ced

ure

Discip

line

Fo

rm

Fu

nctio

n

Discourse

Socioling.

Na

rrow

Broad

Student

CONTENT STUDENT MATERIALS

CONTROL MODALITY Type Source

Text

Teacher

Teacher/S

tud.

Liste

nin

g

Speaking

Reading

Writin

g

Oth

er

Min

ima

l

Extended

Audio

Visu

al

L2

-NN

S

L2

-NS

L2

-NS

A

Student-m

ade

COLT Part B

STUDENT VERBAL INTERACTION

TARGET INFORMATION SUST. FORM REACT INCORPORATION of

LANG. GAP SPEECH RESTR. FO/MES S/T UTTERANCES

Giving RequestInfo. Info.Discourse init. L1

L1 Translation L2

Not codable

Pred.

Unpred.

Pseudo

Genuine

Minimal

Phrase

Clause

Sustained

Choral

Restricted

Unrestricted

Form

Message

Correction

Repetition

Paraphrase

Comment

Expansion

Clarif. request

Elab. request


Part AEach activity and episode is timed so that a calculation of the percentage oftime spent on the various COLT features can be determined. The COLTscheme differs between activity and episode, the latter of which is part of anactivity but yet has different features from other episodes in the same activity.Since group activities differ a great deal from those that are led by a teacher,COLT makes this distinction with the category referred to as ‘Participantorganisation’. Group work is regarded as an essential part in the developmentof communicative competence. Research has shown that there is a lot morenegotiation of meaning between students, and also that they are more willingto take initiatives than when a teacher is in charge of the interaction (Rulon &McCreary 1986).

Focus on form or on meaning is an important division in communicativelanguage teaching. The category ‘Content’ is, therefore, a natural part in theCOLT scheme under which the original intention was to establish focus andsee whether this led to differences in L2-development. Apart from grammar,vocabulary, pronunciation, etc., which all go under form, focus may also be oncommunicative acts (function), how sentences combine into cohesivesequences (discourse) or on forms or styles (sociolinguistics). ‘Other topics’represent the subjects that are dealt with in the classroom. These are dividedinto narrow and broad subjects depending on their range of reference. Narroware those subjects that refer to the classroom and the students’ immediateenvironment and experiences while subjects beyond this are classified asbroad. The ‘Content’ part can, however, be somewhat arbitrary. If the activityis an interview, for instance, focus might be on the narrow subject with whichit is important for the students to get familiar. The interview might also be,however, an exercise in how to ask questions and an aim for correct linguisticforms. It is possible that all three features are equally important, but there isalso a possibility that the teacher only had one of these features in mind for theexercise. In some cases it might, therefore, be necessary to ask the teacherwhat his/her intentions were with that particular exercise.

For students to take initiatives and being involved in their learning havebeen argued, in communicative language teaching, to contribute positively tolearning. ‘Content control’ shows the proportions of this feature.

An argument in the literature is also that the students’ different skillspractice should be integrated to reflect a more authentic use of language. So‘Student modality’ was developed in COLT to determine if differential focuson the skill areas had any influence on the learners’ use of the same skills.Many of the classroom activities include combinations of skills, for instance,


where students are expected to both listen to the teacher or to a tape andspeak themselves.

Finally, COLT consists of a material part. Communicative languageteaching literature has introduced different theories about this. On the onehand, authentic material is important so that the students are prepared to dealwith ‘real’ language outside the classroom. On the other hand, simplified inputhas been shown to increase the ability to understand. COLT differs betweenminimal and extended text, where minimal texts include such things as isolatedsentences and word lists whereas extended texts include stories, dialogues andconnected sentences.

For the analysis of part A, the use of check marks at those featuresdescribing the activity or episode makes it possible to get an overall picture ofeach event in the classroom. The marking of time is important as each featureis calculated against the total amount of time. Not all activities consist of anexclusive focus on one category, but might also involve other features. Theanalysis is then only concerned with the primary focus unless two or morecategories are equally focused, which have to count as a combination offeatures and constitute a separate category.

Part BThe second part of COLT analyses communicative features of verbalexchange and is divided into teacher verbal interaction and student verbalinteraction. As the present study deals with students’ communicativebehaviour and does not look closer into the teacher’s speech, the teacherverbal interaction part is not included in this description.

Each of the students’ utterances is marked in terms of the target language.The original COLT scheme has two alternatives, first language (L1) or secondlanguage (L2). A third alternative is desirable, however, namely L1 translation.Since target language is meant to show how often the students use their firstlanguage instead of trying in their second language, situations where studentsare demanded to translate an L2 utterance cannot be included in these counts.

Utterances which are not codable also need to be marked so that it ispossible to get an idea of how many utterances the students actually makeduring a lesson. This category is, therefore, added to the scheme.

An important difference between a ‘natural’ discourse and a classroomdiscourse is that in the former there is a high degree of unpredictability.Speakers do not typically ask questions to which they already know theanswer, which is quite a common phenomenon in the classroom. This might


result in students not being particularly motivated to engage in a classroomdiscourse. Under ‘Information gap’ COLT differs between giving predictableand unpredictable information, and between asking pseudo questions (knowingthe answer before asking the question) and genuine questions.

To measure amount of speech, COLT includes three categories: ultra-minimal, minimal and sustained, where sustained speech consists of at leastthree main clauses. The present study, however, indicated that this divisionwas too wide. Very few student utterances could be regarded as sustainedspeech. The categories used in this study are, instead, minimal speech (one ortwo words), phrase, clause and sustained speech, which is at least one mainclause with extension.

It has been argued that a creative and uncontrolled language use, just likethe one in L1 development, is also crucial in classroom language learning.‘Form restriction’ measures this dimension.

Two additional categories, ‘Reaction to form or message’ and ‘Incorpora-tion of s/t utterances’ have been disregarded in the present study as they arenot relevant to the students’ communication but rather to the teacher.

Part B is analysed according to each activity or episode. Check marks arecounted and divided with total amount of marks in the same group.

Collection of materialThe data were collected in three different Swedish upper secondary schools,where the students attended their first year. All three classes are considered torepresent traditional teaching. The students were about 16 years old and hadapproximately four years of study of French as a foreign language. Tenlessons, totalling 10 hours, were video recorded in each class, 8 of which weretranscribed and used for the analysis. The first lessons were needed to makethe students feel comfortable with the video camera and myself. A taperecorder was also used to complement the video camera in case the sound wasnot sufficiently recorded. For the present study only students’ utterances havebeen analysed, that is a total of approximately 2,000 utterances.


Classification of activitiesOne of the main purposes of this study is to show the differences betweenvarious activities in the classroom. A lot of research has been done incomparing classrooms according to the frequency of different types ofinteraction which occur in each setting. The immersion classroom in relation tothe foreign language classroom, for instance, resembles natural environmentmuch more because of its focus on meaning instead of form and the manyopportunities for negotiation of meaning (Ellis 1985). A foreign languageclassroom is, however, not focused on form throughout but is rather a mixtureof activities where focus varies according to the features of the activity. It is,therefore, important to state what kind of activities are involved in theclassroom investigated.

A lesson may vary a lot between classes and also within the same class,activities with the same aim of learning can be performed in numerous ways.Thus, it is not an obvious task to divide the different activities into categories.One feature which is fairly distinctive though is what the teacher’s intention iswith a particular activity. The teacher may focus on form, that is talking aboutthe language and paying attention to how it is construed. The opposite is focuson meaning, where language in itself is not as important as what is actuallysaid. However, all activities cannot be included in these two extremities;activities in the classroom are often a mixture of focus on both form andmeaning. Even though this division tends to be arbitrary, it clearly points outthe main differences of classroom events.

Hence the categorisation of classroom activities in the present study is asfollows:

Focus on grammatical form (F)Focus on vocabulary (V)Focus on form with communicative practice (FCP)Focus on form in a communicative context (FCC)Focus on meaning (M)

As is mentioned above, focus on form indicates the exploration of thelanguage. What is said is not important, often the utterances used for examplesare adapted for their purposes and not very natural. Vocabulary wouldnormally go under form, considering that this is also looking at the language.In this study, however, it is necessary to treat vocabulary as a separatecategory because of the fact that it differs considerably from the others. Whengrammar is discussed in a foreign language classroom, this is commonly donein the students’ first language to avoid unnecessary difficulties. Practising


vocabulary, however, is obviously done in the foreign language. As the use ofL1 is a typical feature of form-focused activities, the results would bemisleading if vocabulary were to be included in this category. Vocabularypractice is also a very similar event in many classrooms, which again motivatesit as a separate category. ‘Focus on form with communicative practice’ hasform as its major target, but uses sentences and interaction to explain andpractice form. In ‘focus on form in a communicative context’, on the otherhand, it is rather interaction that is dominating the activity. The interaction,however, is not open but rather directed towards a specific grammaticalphenomenon by the teacher. The students do not necessarily know that theyare being taught grammar. Finally, focus on meaning gives the studentsopportunities for communication without having to concentrate on the correctforms. Usually teachers do not correct grammatical errors in these situations.Focus on meaning has been divided into personal and academic. The reasonfor this is that these two categories differ in some respects. A personalinteraction is usually an open topic where teacher and students talk about theimmediate environment, themselves, etc. and also where students haveopportunities to initiate the discourse while an academic interaction is moredirected by the teacher and deals with more difficult topics.

ResultsPart AThe results in part A are based on a total of 480 minutes (8 lessons) in eachclass. The figures in tables 1-14 show percentage of total amount of time spenton each category.

As can be seen from tables 1 and 2, whole class activities dominate in allthree classes. This suggests a fairly traditional teaching method where theteacher is in charge of the events in the classroom. The creators of COLTsuggested group work as representing a communicative classroom (Spada &Fröhlich 1995). Students are here encouraged to ‘negotiate meaning’ and donot focus as much on the accuracy of utterances. Another reason for groupwork being more communicative might be the fact that many students feelinsecure speaking in front of a lot of people. In a smaller group they also getmore time to express themselves in their own ways, the fact that the teacherdoes not listen all the time creates a more relaxed atmosphere.

Individual work is not very common in either of the classes, which mightbe explained by the fact that the students work individually at home withdifferent exercises. The amount of homework may vary, but it is usually


distributed once a week. The actual class time is instead spent on whole classactivities and group work.

Whole class activities mainly consist of the teacher’s interaction with one orseveral students; very rarely students get to lead the activity. This is a commonfeature for all three classes. Also choral work is a fairly rare event in theclassroom.

As could be expected, management forms a very small part of the teaching(shown in tables 3 and 4). This is usually a directive to the students or somedisciplinary statements from the teacher. Spada & Fröhlich 1995 includemanagement in the group of features that represent a more communicativeclassroom since focus here is on meaning rather than on form. This, however,is questionable as a communicative classroom should contain communicationbetween students and teacher or between students, and giving a directive or astatement is rather a monologue from the teacher which does not necessarilydemand any participation on the students’ part. Management, therefore, is asource of input rather than an invitation to communication. ‘Other topics’, onthe other hand, must be regarded as a communicative feature as focus is onthe topic and students are encouraged to interact. As table 3 and 4 show,communicative attempts are made quite frequently by focusing on a particular

Table 1. Participant organisation by class.

Whole class Group Individual Group/Indiv TotalClass 1 73,24 22,00 0 4,76 100Class 2 64,08 15,74 8,65 11,53 100Class 3 95,15 4,22 0,63 0 100

Table 2. Participant organisation, total.

Whole class Group Individual Group/Indiv Total77,82 13,76 3,07 5,34 100

Table 3. Content by class.

Managem. Lang. Other top. Lang/Other top. Other TotalClass 1 2,49 53,06 38,55 4,99 0,91 100Class 2 1,56 40,72 57,27 0 0,45 100Class 3 0 36,85 47,81 14,54 0,80 100

Table 4. Content, total.

Managem. Lang. Other top. Lang/Other top Other Total1,29 43,24 47,91 6,83 0,73 100


topic. A lot of time is also spent on the language where almost all attention ison form. Traditional grammatical exercises mix with lectures about thestructure of the language. Teachers also have the possibility to combine focuson language and focus on topic which, according to Spada & Fröhlich 1995,also contributes to a communicative classroom. This is not a very commonfeature though; usually attention is drawn to either of the two main aspects.

Consequently, the three Swedish classrooms contain a mixture of typicalcommunicative features and traditional grammar teaching. Another interestingaspect for communicative purposes is what kind of topics are beingconsidered. The COLT scheme separates narrow from broad topics where theformer is restricted to the students’ immediate environment. Both involvefocus on meaning and are thus sources of communication, but the amount ofcommunication they generate may vary. On the one hand, narrow subjectscontain a more familiar subject and thus include easier vocabulary, but on theother hand, broader subjects like news, political problems, etc. might be moreinteresting and, therefore, inspire students to speak. As is shown in table 5 and6, broad subjects seem to dominate, except in class 3 where a lot of narrowsubjects are treated. The choice between broad and narrow subjects issomething that the teacher needs to adapt to his/her students. If a broad topicincludes too many difficult words, this might contribute to a loss of interest bythe students and thereby not generate any communication. In this case a morenarrow topic might be much more successful.

Table 5. Other topics by class.

Narrow Broad TotalClass 1 21,76 78,24 100Class 2 27,73 72,27 100Class 3 51,25 48,75 100

Table 6. Other topics, total.

Narrow Broad Total34,68 63,32 100


If the topic or task is determined by the students or by the teacher andstudents together, this contributes to a communicative language learningaccording to Spada & Fröhlich 1995. The students would be able to take upsubjects that interest them, which would make them more motivated tocommunicate. In all three classes, this turned out to be a rare phenomenon(see tables 7 and 8). The teacher is usually already prepared with topics andtasks when the lesson begins. One problem with letting students have toomuch to do with the planning of the lesson, however, is that a class usuallyconsists of at least 20 students which makes it hard to find something thateveryone wants to do. Still, in some cases, students have been involved indecisions concerning the topic they will discuss. This mostly involves topicswithin the topic, that is if the teacher is holding a grammar session, studentstake up problems with specific grammatical structures and by this lead theteaching into a certain direction. This gives students an opportunity to dealwith the difficulties they are having and also to communicate in the foreignlanguage.

As tables 9 and 10 show, the combination of listening and speaking seemsto be the most common skill practice in the classroom. This indicates that theteaching method is intended to be communicative. It is important, however, to

Table 7. Content control by class.

Teacher Teacher/Stud Student TotalClass 1 74,84 25,16 0 100Class 2 78,71 21,29 0 100Class 3 88,82 11,18 0 100

Table 8. Content control, total.

Teacher Teacher/Stud Student Total80,81 19,19 0 100

Table 9. Student modality by class.

List. Speak. Read. Writ. List/Spea Other TotalClass 1 21,61 13,77 7,84 0 48,73 8,05 100Class 2 22,72 21,16 4,68 24,28 21,60 5,56 100Class 3 10,48 25,81 0,60 7,06 43,75 12,3 100

Table 10. Student modality, total.

List. Speak. Read. Writ. List/Spea Other Total18,07 20,32 4,30 10,16 38,39 8,76 100


point out that only a few students are speaking. Since time is very limited ininstructed language learning, not everyone has a chance to speak even in themost communicative activities. Even though teachers try to involve allstudents in the discourse, factors like motivation and personality play animportant role in activities where students are encouraged to speak. Usually afew students are very extrovert and take up a lot of the speaking time with theresult that the rest of the class do not get to practice their speech in the foreignlanguage. This is a difficult problem to solve, since forcing the students tospeak does not favour their interest in the language. Group work, however,might be the solution for at least some students as only a few people arelistening and, therefore, the situation is less intimidating.

The total of the three classes shows that spoken discourse is the mainfeature in the classroom (see table 10). Even though one class is doing quite alot of writing, this is still a relatively rare element in classroom teaching.

As tables 11 and 12 show, a textbook is the most frequently used materialin the classrooms, with both minimal and extended text. A lot of the minimaltexts consist of vocabularies in the textbook and/or on handouts. For acommunicative purpose, extended texts are important elements in theclassroom. Minimal texts are, however, a good complement for the students tounderstand the parts upon which a text is build on.

Other types of material vary according to the class. Class 2 for example,listens to tapes and watches video a lot more than the others, while the teacherin class 3 seems to prefer visual material where the students get to speakthemselves. It also needs to be pointed out that class 3 has a native Frenchteacher which means that the students hear a ‘real’ French accent all the time,while the others need a tape for this.

Most frequently, the material is specifically designed for foreign languageteaching (see tables 13 and 14). Considering the fact that the students have not

Table 11. Materials by class, type.

Minim. text Extend. text Audio Visual Aud/Vis Other TotalClass 1 53,98 32,39 5,11 0 0 8,52 100Class 2 35,85 18,40 23,58 0 22,17 0 100Class 3 49,40 32,14 0 18,45 0 0 100

Table 12. Materials, total, type.

Minim. text Extend. text Audio Visual Aud/Vis Other Total45,68 26,98 10,61 5,58 8,45 2,70 100


yet reached an advanced level of foreign language learning, native speakermaterial only could easily make the students lose interest in the language as itmight be too hard to understand. One of the teachers, however, alsointroduces material intended for native speakers such as articles in newspapers.As a complement to foreign language teaching material, this might wakeinterest by the use of current topics and also contribute to the strengthening ofthe students’ self-esteem once they have got through the text and understoodit.

Discussion of part AThe three classes in the study proved to be a mixture of traditional teachingand a more communicative approach. Even though these classes are indifferent schools and have different conditions (e.g. the students’ skills), itseems to be a relatively uniform teaching method.

Fröhlich, Spada & Allen 1985 proposed a global score to indicate thedegree of ‘communicative orientation’ of different L2 programs, wherefeatures representing a communicative classroom are assigned a numericalvalue based on the percentage of class time spent on that feature. The globalscore is the total of the individual values for each feature. Measuringcommunicativity, however, is somewhat problematic, especially regarding thecommunicative features. It is very hard, if not impossible, to say if thesefeatures are of equal theoretical importance, that is if they can be counted asequally communicative. As long as this is an unsolved problem, there will beno reliable results with these kinds of measurements. This study has, therefore,focused on describing the communicativity in the classrooms and comparingthem with each other.

The two main features in a communicative environment are:

– focus on meaning

Table 13. Materials by class, source.

L2-NNS L2-NS L2-NSA Student-made TotalClass 1 75,14 14,69 10,17 0 100Class 2 74,53 0,47 18,40 6,60 100Class 3 100,00 0 0 0 100

Table 14. Materials, total, source.

L2-NNS L2-NS L2-NSA Student-made Total81,37 5,13 10,84 2,66 100


– opportunity to speak

It is impossible to decide whether one is more ‘typical’ than the other, socombining the two measures is meaningless. Thus, the two features are treatedseparately and the classes have to be compared according to each feature.Focus on meaning is counted under ‘Content’, and is realised by ‘Othertopics’, alone or in combination with ‘Language’. Figure 1 shows thedistribution of focus on meaning in the three classes. The columns indicatepercentage of total amount of time in the classroom.

Opportunity to speak is another necessary condition for communication toappear. This is found in ‘Participant organisation’ under ‘Group’, in ‘Contentcontrol’ under ‘Student’ and in ‘Student modality’ under ‘Speaking’ and‘Listening/Speaking’. Figure 2 shows amount of time where students havegood opportunities to speak.

0

1 0

2 0

3 0

4 0

5 0

6 0

7 0

Class1 Class 2 Class 3

Figure 1. Focus on meaning.

0

2 0

4 0

6 0

8 0

1 0 0

Class1 Class 2 Class 3

Figure 2. Opportunities to speak.


The features thus vary in the different classes. In class 1, there are a lot ofopportunities to speak, while class 3 involves a lot of focus on meaning.Consequently, the three classes can thus be summarised as having a fairlysimilar degree of communication and can in the following be considered as aunity representative of traditional and communicative teaching in combination.

Part BPart B is analysed according to the various categories of activities. As wasshown in Part A, the three classes include similar teaching methods withapproximately the same amount of communicativity, which is why a divisionbetween classes is not relevant here. Tables 15-18 are based on approximately2000 student utterances.

For a communicative classroom, a necessary condition is of course anextensive use of the foreign language involved. Table 15 shows that this usevaries according to focus on form and meaning. Traditional grammar lessons,where focus is exclusively on form, are mostly performed in the students’ firstlanguage. The students are then usually allowed to answer back in their firstlanguage. One reason for this might be the importance of the students’understanding of the structures and rules presented to them. When focus is onform only, examples usually have a limited part of the teaching, whereas intasks where focus includes both form and meaning, the teaching method isbased upon communicative examples in the foreign language. These categoriesdo, therefore, contain a lot more L2 use. There is a significant difference in theuse of the foreign language between FCP and FCC, which is also dependingon the fact that the former rather concentrates on the form while the latterincludes a lot more interaction. Focus on meaning alone also generates quitean extensive use of L2 from the students. The teacher uses the foreignlanguage and expects the students to do the same. It is not uncommon,however, that they answer in their first language if they lack the necessaryvocabularies. Insecurity also plays an important role in these situations. A

Table 15. Target language (% of coded utterances).

Form Vocab. FCP FCC Mpers. Macad.L1 61,18 8,62 43,91 26,75 23,89 23,95

L1Trans 9,87 4,58 6,44 3,39 8,85 4,88L2 28,29 86,52 49,16 68,66 61,06 68,37

L1+L2 0,66 0,27 0,48 1,20 6,19 2,79Total 100 100 100 100 100 100


student sometimes needs to be persuaded into giving an answer in the foreignlanguage.

Vocabulary is special in this sense since the students have to repeat thevocabulary in L2. The use of the foreign language here is, however, notrelevant for the communication factor, as most of the task is performed withsingle words.

It has been argued that a high degree of unpredictability makes studentsmore motivated to communicate and is therefore an important factor incommunicativity in the classroom (Spada & Fröhlich 1995). Givingpredictable information, that is, answering a question to which the teacheralready knows the answer, proved to be a common feature especially in taskswhere focus is on form (see table 16). Interestingly enough, also tasks wherefocus is on meaning with an academic topic generate the same kind ofpredictable information. When the topic is personal, however, students givemore unpredictable information. It is the teacher that controls the informationgiven by the students by requesting information in a pseudo or a genuine way,which means that the academic subjects are conducted in a way that makesthe students follow the outlined path. Personal subjects include questions likeWhat did you do during the weekend, etc. which results in unpredictableanswers. Once again, there is a big difference between FCP and FCC and onceagain the former follows the pattern of focus on form while the latter is moremeaning-oriented.

Pseudo questions are obviously very rare, as the data only regards thestudents’ behaviour. Genuine questions, on the other hand, are fairly commonwhen form is involved. In these situations the students need to understand thedifferent forms and structures and do, therefore, ask a lot of questions.

Sustained speech is an important factor in the description of communicativebehaviour. Outside the classroom, speakers engage in both extended andminimal speech. Extended discourse, however, has traditionally been restrictedby classroom instruction, which makes it hard for the students to take part in a

Table 16. Information gap (% of coded utterances).

Form Vocab. FCP FCC Mpers. Macad.Giving info, pred 69,74 38,00 44,39 24,95 18,58 58,14

Giving info, unpred 8,55 5,66 6,92 26,75 41,59 13,72Req. info, pseudo 0 0 0 3,99 0 0Req. info, genuine 15,13 4,31 17,90 13,77 7,08 7,21

Other 6,58 52,03 30,79 30,54 32,75 20,93Total 100 100 100 100 100 100


‘real’ conversation outside the classroom. The present study confirms thesetraditional views of extended discourse. As is shown in table 17, sustainedspeech is hardly ever performed by the students, only when the subject ispersonal a few students expand their utterances. Whole clauses are usedprimarily in tasks with a combination of focus on form and meaning. Sincethese usually contain practices where students are encouraged to use wholesentences, this is not very surprising. When focus is on form or meaning alone,there are usually no such practices and it is easier to get away with only aword or a phrase. So even if focus is on meaning and the task involvespossibilities for extended speech, students are not obliged to use wholesentences and do, therefore, get less communicative practice than if theteacher directs the students in specific practices.

To experiment with the language and test hypotheses about its structures isa way of practising communication. In traditional classrooms, however, thelearner is expected to produce language that is restricted in its forms. Thismight be intimidating for the students who then communicate less since it istoo much hard work to get the utterances correct. Table 18 shows that themore focus is on meaning, the more the students can speak freely withoutcorrective interruptions. Teachers are most restrictive when focus is on form,or both on form and on meaning. As is mentioned above, focus on both formand meaning usually involves practices where the students are encouraged touse whole sentences. These are equally expected to be correct in their forms.When focus is exclusively on meaning, however, the students have theirchance to experiment with the language. As was seen in table 17, however,

Table 17. Sustained speech (% of coded utterances in L2).

Form Vocab. FCP FCC Mpers. Macad.Minimal 52,27 66,77 34,62 38,75 50,00 54,90Phrase 45,45 16,46 16,83 17,09 21,05 17,97Clause 2,27 16,77 48,56 43,87 23,68 27,12

Sustained 0 0 0 0,28 5,26 0Total 100 100 100 100 100 100

Table 18. Form restriction (% of coded utterances in L2, not oui/non).

Form Vocab. FCP FCC Mpers. Macad.Choral 52,50 58,42 11,86 18,21 16,95 1,57

Restricted 47,50 40,59 87,63 67,01 22,03 10,20Unrestricted 0 0,99 0,52 14,78 61,02 88,23

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100


the students do not take this chance, which lessens the effect of acommunicative situation.

Discussion of part BThe use of part B was aimed at describing the communicative features of thestudents’ verbal behaviour. The different activities were categorised accordingto focus on meaning and form in order to establish what kind of activities thatgenerate most communication on behalf of the students. Not surprisingly,those activities focusing on meaning gave rise to more communication in theform of extensive use of L2, giving unpredictable information, andunrestricted speech. One important indicator of communicative behaviour,however, diverges from this pattern, namely sustained speech. The studentsuse longer utterances if focus is both on meaning and on form than onmeaning exclusively. As is mentioned above there is an explanation for this:activities which focus on both form and meaning tend to be very organised,with well-formed sentences for the students to practice on. Thus, they have touse whole sentences when they speak. When focus is only on meaning, theinteraction is usually less controlled which makes it easier for the students toget away with a minimum of speech. Even if the teacher encourages longerutterances, the ‘authentic speech’ situation is somewhat disturbed when theteacher has to ask the students to extend their speech in every utterance,which is why they often settle for short phrases or words. It is, however,regrettable that the students do not profit more from these occasions sincethere are few opportunities for them to speak freely and practice their foreignlanguage in the classroom. An interaction where focus is on meaning usuallyinvites the students to make use of structures and vocabularies they havelearnt and also to convey messages. How to make them do this, however, is avery common problem in most classrooms, and to solve this, factors likeattitudes, motivation and personality have to be considered.


Concluding remarksThis study has described the communicativity in three classrooms, andcompared students’ communicative behaviour in different activities using theCOLT observation scheme. No attempts have been made to explain the roleof communicativity in language acquisition, though this is the overall purposewith this and following articles that will deal with fluency and accuracy in theforeign language classroom.

ReferencesEllis, R. 1985. Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.Fröhlich, M., N. Spada & P. Allen. 1985. ‘Differences in the communicative

orientation of L2 classrooms’. TESOL Quaterly 19, 27-57.Harley, B. & M. Swain. 1984. ‘The interlanguage of immersion students and

its implications for second language teaching’. In A. Davies, C. Criper & A.Howatt (eds.), Interlanguage, 291-311. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UniversityPress.

Lightbown, P. & N. Spada. 1993. How languages are learned. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Rulon, K. & J. McCreary. 1986. ‘Negotiation of content: teacher-fronted andsmall group interaction’. In R. Day (ed.), Talking to learn: conversation insecond language acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Skolverkets rapport nr 95. 1996. Undervisningsprocessen i främmande språk.Stockholm: Skolverket.

Spada, N. & M. Fröhlich. 1995. Communicative orientation of languageteaching observation scheme. Coding conventions and applications.Sydney: NCELTR, Macquarie University.

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